LAS VEGAS — North Texas got its first serious protection problem on its opening possession at Indiana, and for an offensive line playing its first game together, it was exactly the kind of play that could have become a problem all afternoon. Tayven Jackson had already helped the Mean Green convert a fourth-and-1 when Indiana ran a twist up front and Tyrique Tucker got through for an eight-yard sack. A holding penalty followed, putting North Texas well behind the chains against a defense that had spent much of its national championship season creating those situations.
It was the only sack North Texas allowed, and Neal Brown did not put it on his offensive line when he reviewed the game this week. He thought Jackson held the ball too long and had a chance to get rid of it before Tucker reached him.
“He took one big hit where the ball should’ve got out of his hand,” Brown said. “The sack was on him. We allowed one sack in the game. That was really on him holding on to it. So, we got to eliminate those negative plays, but I thought he’s accurate with the ball.”
Jackson finished 22 of 28 for 192 yards with one interception. North Texas ran 67 offensive plays, gained 367 yards and held the ball for 37:22 in a 52-16 loss. The score got away from the Mean Green in the fourth quarter, but Indiana never spent the afternoon teeing off on Jackson. Brown kept getting the ball out quickly, moving his quarterback and mixing Jackson into the run game rather than leaving him in the same pocket snap after snap.
UNLV comes into Denton after showing Hawai‘i some of the same uncertainty before the snap. Paul Guenther crowded the line, brought rushers from different places and also showed pressure before dropping defenders into coverage. Dan Mullen said Monday that the plan was built for Hawai‘i and cautioned against assuming the Rebels will simply carry the same calls into another matchup.
“I don’t know that it’s just scheme,” Mullen said. “That’s going to be a week-to-week thing. That’s depending on the opponent we’re playing.”
Brown already has one game of answers on tape.
Photo: Lucas PeltierOn North Texas’ opening possession, the Mean Green faced fourth-and-1 from their own 34 and used motion and play-action to get tight end Brec Long into the flat. Jackson found him for nine yards and a first down before Indiana’s rush could have much effect on the play. Tucker got home on the next snap, but North Texas kept the drive alive and eventually crossed midfield before Jackson missed Corri Milliner on fourth down at the Indiana 38.
The 12-play possession did not produce points, but Brown had already shown he was comfortable taking smaller completions and using fourth down rather than repeatedly asking a new offensive line to sit in obvious pass protection. North Texas was willing to make Indiana tackle the ball underneath and defend the width of the field instead of letting the Hoosiers attack Jackson from the same spot.
Jahiem White became a major part of that. He gained 10 and seven yards on consecutive carries early in the second quarter, but North Texas also kept finding him when Indiana committed defenders closer to the line.
On third-and-3 from the North Texas 32, Indiana brought a corner from the outside. Jackson immediately got the ball to White in the space left behind the pressure, and White made the first defender miss on an 11-yard gain. Jackson did not have to wait for the rush to declare itself or ask the protection to sort out every defender. The ball was already outside.
White finished with seven catches for 36 yards and 14 carries for 61, giving him 21 touches in his return from the knee injury that ended his previous season. Brown made it clear this week that North Texas plans to continue building around him.
“We have to establish the run,” Brown said. “Jahiem White has been our most effective player so far on offense through camp into this point. So, we’ve got to continue to get him going.”
Brown thought the Mean Green left another 40 or 50 rushing yards on the field even after finishing with 152 against Indiana.
Jackson gave Brown another way out of Indiana’s pressure looks with his legs. North Texas faced third-and-7 near midfield during the second quarter with the Hoosiers crowding the line and threatening a simulated pressure. North Texas brought a blocker across the formation, Jackson kept the football and got outside for 17 yards to the Indiana 36.
It was a called run, not Jackson escaping after a passing play broke down. Indiana moved defenders toward the line, North Texas secured the edge and Jackson ran into the space behind them. Brown had no problem using his quarterback when the defensive movement gave him somewhere to go.
Photo: Lucas Peltier“I thought he was efficient with the ball,” Brown said. “If you look at his completion percentage, I thought he ran the ball effectively.”
Brown called Indiana “a foundation game” for Jackson and said North Texas will “continue to put more on his plate the longer we go.”
North Texas changed quarterbacks later in the half and gave Indiana something else to defend. Chris Jimerson Jr. entered at the North Texas 43 and ran the option for nine yards. Jackson returned on the next play, and Brown moved him outside the pocket instead of putting him back in a traditional dropback.
Jackson looked outside before coming back to Josiah Martin crossing the field and hitting him for 28 yards to the Indiana 20. One snap forced Indiana to defend Jimerson in the option game. The next sent Jackson away from the original pocket and made the rush change direction while he worked through his progression.
The Mean Green again reached scoring range but came away with three points. Jackson threw the ball away under pressure on first down, Jimerson gained two yards and White caught a short pass before Dominic De Freitas made a 33-yard field goal. North Texas had moved the ball again without getting the touchdown it needed.
That was a problem throughout the afternoon. North Texas was able to put together long possessions, but Indiana was finishing its drives with touchdowns. The Mean Green went into halftime trailing 24-6 despite gaining 173 yards and producing 10 first downs. Jackson had completed 15 of 18 passes, and Tucker’s first-drive sack was still Indiana’s only one.
Brown went back to White immediately after halftime. White took the first snap 19 yards before Indiana dropped him for a loss on the next play. Jackson answered by going downfield, finding Milliner for 36 yards to the Indiana 23. He kept the ball for four yards on the next snap and went back to Milliner to move North Texas inside the 10.
White finished the six-play, 75-yard drive with a nine-yard touchdown run behind the right side of the offensive line. North Texas needed 3:20 to get from its own 25 to the end zone and had used White on the ground, Jackson as a runner and two downfield throws to do it.
Indiana answered with a touchdown in four plays.
That was the separation between the two offenses for much of the game. North Texas could hold the ball and work its way down the field. Josh Hoover could erase several minutes of work with one explosive completion. He finished 13 of 16 for 231 yards and four touchdowns.
Indiana also lost starting cornerbacks during the game. A.J. Harris left in the first half, and Jamari Sharpe was also ruled out, forcing reserves into larger roles and giving North Texas more opportunities outside. UNLV will have different personnel and a different defense Saturday, so those second-half matchups cannot simply be carried over to Denton.
North Texas still showed what Brown is willing to do when the down-and-distance gives the pass rush an advantage. A penalty backed the Mean Green into first-and-25 near midfield during the third quarter, and two plays later they faced third-and-23 from the Indiana 48.
Jackson converted it.
Justin Stevenson found room near the sideline, and Jackson put the ball on him for 24 yards and a first down at the Indiana 24. North Texas had landed in one of the few situations where Brown could not hide the passing down with the run game or a short conversion, and Jackson still got the offense out of it.
The drive ended with another field goal. De Freitas connected from 38 yards to cut Indiana’s lead to 31-16.
Indiana kept showing pressure during the afternoon and did not always send everyone it put near the line. North Texas rarely responded the same way twice. Jackson got the ball outside when Indiana vacated space, ran when the edge opened and moved away from the original pocket on other snaps. Jimerson gave Brown another option in the run game and forced the Hoosiers to account for a different quarterback when he entered.
Brown came away encouraged by how his line handled the matchup. He was much less interested in celebrating the final result.
“I was fired up about our physicality,” Brown said. “I thought we did some good things on the offensive line versus the best defensive line in the country last year.”
North Texas had the ball down 31-16 in the fourth quarter before Indiana pulled away. Brown thought the final score made the game look less competitive than it had been for most of the afternoon.
“I’m far from happy just because how sloppy we were in the fourth quarter and we made a really competitive game look not competitive for somebody that didn’t watch it,” Brown said.
Indiana scored the final 21 points. Jackson threw a late interception, and the Hoosiers turned it into another touchdown. North Texas finished with one touchdown and three made field goals, missed another field goal and turned the ball over on downs twice. The Mean Green moved into Indiana territory often enough to make the offense work, but too many of those possessions ended without seven points.
Brown also does not consider the Indiana game a complete look at his offense. Long described what North Texas showed in Bloomington as “definitely a base level” and said more will be added in the way the Mean Green get the ball to different players and move it around the field.
Mullen knows the same thing from the other sideline. UNLV has one North Texas game to study under Brown, so the Rebels have also gone back through the previous work of Brown and his staff looking for concepts that could appear Saturday.
“You’re trying to figure it out,” Mullen said. “You get one game on them. Better than Memphis where you had zero games. At least there’s something that we can watch on the team that we’re going to go play.”
Brown has been doing the same work on UNLV. He noted that the Rebels have shown more three-man fronts this season after playing more out of four-man fronts a year ago, and he pointed to the speed in the secondary and the depth at linebacker as two things North Texas will have to deal with.
“There’s some unknowns there of what we’re going to see defensively,” Brown said. “I think their back end is super talented and those guys, there’s a lot of speed there. I think they’re trying to get more linebackers because they got depth there as well. And so it’s going to be a challenge not only from a schematic standpoint, but just the speed they have on the defensive side of the ball.”
White is the obvious place for Brown to go when UNLV brings a defender from the perimeter. North Texas was willing to take those short throws against Indiana and let White work after the catch. UNLV tackled much better at Hawai‘i than it did against Memphis, and Mullen singled out the improvement afterward. That becomes important when a pressure call leaves the ball coming out before the rusher ever reaches Jackson.
Jackson can punish the movement himself. His 17-yard run against Indiana came with defenders threatening pressure near the line, and Brown was willing to use him rather than keep asking the offensive line to sort through the rush. UNLV can bring another body toward the line Saturday, but the Rebels cannot lose track of the quarterback behind it.
Brown can also move Jackson before the rush gets there. The 28-yard completion to Martin came after Jimerson’s option run and with Jackson working outside the original pocket. Indiana had to change where it was attacking while Jackson had time to come back to his second read.
North Texas did not solve Indiana’s defense. It scored one touchdown, settled for field goals and eventually lost by 36. But pressure itself was rarely what stopped the Mean Green, and Brown said Indiana’s lone sack came because Jackson held the ball too long.
North Texas spent the rest of the afternoon getting the ball around the rush, running Jackson into the space behind it and moving him away from it. Indiana gave UNLV a full game of those answers, but Long has already said the Mean Green showed only the base level of Brown’s offense.
Guenther knows what North Texas has already used. Saturday will show what Brown kept out.